{"id":302002,"date":"2025-11-19T22:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T22:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/302002\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T22:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T22:35:09","slug":"what-we-know-of-the-countries-backing-us-military-moves-in-the-caribbean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/302002\/","title":{"rendered":"What we know of the countries backing US military moves in the Caribbean"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The United States shared images on Wednesday of joint military exercises in Trinidad and Tobago<\/a>, as its armed forces amass in the region, building pressure on Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n The deployment is receiving logistical and diplomatic support from multiple Latin American countries, ranging from limited assistance to open cooperation with to US forces.\n <\/p>\n

\n Here\u2019s more on who\u2019s backing the US operation in the Caribbean, which Washington says is meant to combat drug trafficking in the region:\n <\/p>\n

Trinidad and Tobago<\/p>\n

\n Trinidad and Tobago, which is only 11 kilometers (7 miles) from Venezuela at its closest point, has declared its full support for the US operation.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI, along with most of the country, am happy that the US naval deployment is having success in their mission,\u201d Trinidadian Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said in early September, after the US launched its first attack on an alleged drug vessel<\/a> in the Caribbean. \u201cI have no sympathy for traffickers; the US military should kill them all violently,\u201d she added.\n <\/p>\n

\n After the US began the deployment in August, Persad-Bissessar also warned that if Venezuela attacks Guyana, a country with which it has a territorial dispute<\/a>, she would grant the US government access for defense operations. The declaration showed her willingness to abandon a yearslong policy of neutrality and a pragmatic relationship with Venezuela based on economic interests.\n <\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

\n In late October, the US Navy destroyer USS Gravely carried out military drills in Trinidad and Tobago for several days, a move that the Venezuelan government called \u201ca hostile provocation.\u201d Maduro responded by announcing the suspension of bilateral gas agreements with the country, claiming its prime minister was threatening to turn Trinidad and Tobago into \u201cthe aircraft carrier of the US empire against Venezuela.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Guyana backed the US military deployment in the Caribbean shortly after it started in August, saying it would support a \u201ccollaborative and integrated approach to tackle transnational organized crime.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n It added that transnational organized crime was a \u201cthreat to peace and security in the region\u201d and involved networks like \u201cthe Cartel de los Soles of Venezuela.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Washington claims Cartel de los Soles is led by Maduro and is responsible for trafficking drugs to the US and Europe. Caracas has dismissed the accusation as a \u201cfabrication.\u201d But experts and former US government officials say the group is not a<\/a> formally organized cartel, and it\u2019s a stretch to suggest Maduro leads it, though there is government involvement in the drug trade.\n <\/p>\n

\n The head of US Southern Command Admiral Alvin Holsey visited Guyana this month to promote regional security and met with senior commanders to discuss a long-standing defense alliance between both countries, the US Embassy said.\n <\/p>\n

\n In early November, an AC-130J military aircraft operated by the US Air Force was spotted in El Salvador\u2019s Comalapa Cooperative Security Base, according to photos and satellite imagery obtained by CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n The gunship can carry Hellfire missiles but is primarily armed with large-caliber cannons. The AC-130J seen in El Salvador had two cannons \u2013 including a 105mm howitzer \u2013 visible its left side.\n <\/p>\n

\n Until recently, the Salvadoran base had been used almost exclusively for unarmed aircraft, according to the US Southern Command. Its location near the coast provides a strategic position for the US campaign in the Pacific, as the reach of bases in the Caribbean is limited.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cOperating from Comalapa offers more options and allows for monitoring and defending a much wider swath of the Pacific Ocean, through which much of the cocaine trafficked to the United States passes,\u201d Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CNN earlier in November.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\n Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has not commented specifically on the US military deployment, but he has a close relationship with US President Donald Trump.\n <\/p>\n

\n US military personnel are conducting training exercises in Panama, although the government of President Jos\u00e9 Ra\u00fal Mulino is trying to downplay the matter.\n <\/p>\n

\n The president denied last week that his country is participating in any \u201chostile act against Venezuela\u201d and asserted that the military maneuvers are part of bilateral cooperation agreements with Washington.\n <\/p>\n

\n Panama, which has not had armed forces since 1990, has hosted military exercises since the US invasion of the country in 1989<\/a>. In April, Panama signed a memorandum of cooperation enabling a greater US military presence and authorizing the use of air and naval bases for joint exercises. Mulino again denied that the activities are related to the White House\u2019s pressure on Venezuela.\n <\/p>\n

\n President Luis Abinader said Monday that the Dominican Republic and the US Drug Enforcement Administration would launch \u201cmuch more extensive and in-depth\u201d actions in the fight against drug trafficking.\n <\/p>\n

\n That same day, Dominican authorities said they boarded a speedboat with 806 packages of suspected cocaine off the coast of Pedernales. The National Drug Control Directorate said the intervention was in support of Operation Southern Spear, the name the Pentagon uses for the military deployment in the region.\n <\/p>\n

\n The collaboration had already begun on Saturday, when authorities seized another shipment of nearly 500 packages of cocaine on a speedboat.\n <\/p>\n

Puerto Rico and other bases<\/p>\n

\n Puerto Rico, a self-governing US territory in the Caribbean, also plays a key role in the deployment, as it contains the most US military bases in the Caribbean.\n <\/p>\n

\n Satellite imagery and photographs<\/a> taken in the area show that Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, which had been closed since 2004, is now operational again, and that US Marines supporting the Southern Command missions participated in amphibious landing drills in the archipelago in late September.\n <\/p>\n

\"Members<\/p>\n

\n The United States has two other bases in and around the Caribbean, but in both cases, the countries where they\u2019re located have spoken out against the deployment.\n <\/p>\n

\n In southeastern Cuba, the Guantanamo Naval Base has been used for logistical, surveillance, and other operations since 1903, but the Cuban government, an ally of Venezuela, has repeatedly rejected the US military presence as well as its recent deployment.\n <\/p>\n

\n Washington also has an air base in Honduras staffed by more than 500 US military personnel and 500 Honduran and American civilians, according to its website. In January, before Trump took office, Honduran President Xiomara Castro threatened to reconsider the use of the base if the US carried out mass deportations. In August, she called some of Washington\u2019s accusations against Maduro \u201cunfounded\u201d and later spoke out against the US military deployment in the Caribbean.\n <\/p>\n

\n Countries in South America have shown political support for Washington\u2019s pressure campaign on Venezuela.\n <\/p>\n

\n In August, Ecuador designated Cartel de los Soles as an \u201corganized crime terrorist group.\u201d The decree was signed by President Daniel Noboa, an ally of Washington, whose attempts to lift a ban on foreign military bases was rejected in a recent referendum.\n <\/p>\n

\n Paraguay and Argentina, other White House allies, have also designated Cartel de los Soles as a terrorist organization.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States shared images on Wednesday of joint military exercises in Trinidad and Tobago, as its armed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-302002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}